Post-Human or Neo-Vitruvian? The Contemporary Neo-Humanist Revolution

Abstract

With its cybernetic and optimistic vision of the future of mankind, characterised by the birth of a human-machine hybrid no longer subject to pain or chronic illness, the post-human theoretical perspective is flawed in both scientific and philosophical terms. To deny suffering is to deny human life itself, and yet, though the human dream of defeating pain and death has so far been systematically thwarted, it has not faded. The post-human approach proposes to go beyond human biological boundaries with the help of science and technology, reprogramming nature to resemble a human-robot hybrid. However, the artificial supports that this approach relies on (such as microchips) still cannot negate death and pain, which are constituent parts of biological life. The negation of pain would mean the negation of the human being in the philosophical sense. An alternative approach, which we shall refer to as Neo-Vitruvian or neo-humanist, emphasises the scientific and technical skills of human beings, who can improve human lives and defeat disease and pain by using their knowledge of the secrets of nature. Armed with this knowledge, today post-modern human beings are able to control nature with the same rules by which nature creates the world. In this way, today’s human beings, like Leonardo Da Vinci in the Renaissance, use science to assume the role of the Universal Creator, without however manipulating nature as proposed by the post-humanists.